Your editorial on Ray Gosling (17 February) does not tackle the vexed issue of the BBC's duty of care to an obviously vulnerable person. I have an enduring memory of Ray at Granada in the 1960s. At the end of a day's filming, he would insist on being dropped off at some isolated high Pennine bus stop where he was confident that a bus would be along to take him to some town or other where he was equally confident some friends would be ready to provide him with a bed. His was not the world of $500-a-day limos, and I am not alone, I am sure, in remembering him as a truly inspiring colleague and a rare authentic voice.

And how then does this current generation of broadcasters deal with Ray's pain in fraught old age? Any moral value to be claimed because a crime has been uncovered is undercut by the fact that the "evidence" was put before the public, not the police. In fact, public duty has nothing to do with it. The broadcasters' flyblown eyes (to use Dennis Potter's phrase) see rather only the opportunity of cheap sensationalism. Their attenuated sense of responsibility knows nothing of the duty of care that common decency suggests should be in play in all they do. The concept of informed consent is beyond their ken. So, quite aside from the issues this incident raises in connection with the euthanasia debate, there is the question of the BBC's moral responsibilities. How does allowing an old man to incriminate himself help that? Well, certainly not as much as the publicity helps the BBC.

What, beyond being the object of hostility of the Murdochs, does today's corporation have going for it? Not much.